Thursday, March 15, 2012

Sliding into childhood

How much influence do we as parents really have on our children? How much is genetic? How much influence do friends have? How much do other adults have? I am sure everyone has their own idea about this, but these questions become very real as your kids grow into their own, as they become a person from that little baby they once were. These comments have almost nothing to do with the rest of the post, except that we had a great experience as a family this weekend and one that we hope they will remember, but probably will not due to their age. Will this shape who they become?

We went to experience the “rustic mountain modern charm” of the indoor water park in Sevierville. How does it live up to its description? Rustic – don’t think you can have a “66,000 square foot, state-of-the-art waterpark” and still get away with calling it rustic. Mountain – technically close, but unless you leave the waterpark, you have no idea you are near the mountains. Modern – yes, the 3 flat screens in our room gave that away. Charm – hard to call spending the day with hundreds of strangers charming. BUT, what I would say is that it is a blast.

We spent the first 3 hours or so in the kiddie pool as I expected that Brown, who is generally timid, would not be so interested in the bigger slides. He was fine with getting splashed so when he asked to go on the big boy slide I thought we would give it a try. After a climb of some serious stairs and a time of waiting in line, he began to get nervous. But I didn’t give him a choice to back down and soon we were hurtling down the tube. He told me he was scared and so when we hit the water at the bottom and he started shaking, I thought I might have made a big mistake. But he immediately said, “can we go again?” This was not the last time we heard this question that day.

Here is a video of our last ride of the day.

Joseay made lots of friends. She was too small to do most of the slides, but she had a great time running around the pools, splashing, talking to strangers, and riding the float with mom in the wave pool.